


The Attic

by Kharon



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Don't copy to another site, Eventual Smut, Kamabakka Queendom, M/M, Okama, Post-Wano Arc (One Piece), Protective Roronoa Zoro, Queer Themes, Revolutionaries, Roronoa Zoro and Vinsmoke Sanji Bickering, Unresolved Sexual Tension, crossdressing kind of if you look at it the right way, no beta we die like men, post chapter 1004, the talk about what happened during the Time Skip that Sanji never wanted to happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29613813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharon/pseuds/Kharon
Summary: “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” the stranger drawls, giving them both a once-over. His eyes settle on Sanji, run down the cook from head to heel and then back up considerably slower. “Hello, there, pretty bird.”What Zoro expects is a flaming foot to the guy’s face.Instead, the cook pushes the sunglasses to the top of his head, raises his curly eyebrow and takes a drag from his smoke. His right leg hitches up his side gracefully, bunching up the coat around his hips even further and drawing the eye to his makeshift skirt. Then he blows out a ring of smoke that perfectly frames the stranger’s face.Zoro and Sanji, on the run from the marines and stuck together in the attic of a pub for 2 days.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro & Vinsmoke Sanji, Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 28
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Things that happen when nearly all of your friends are suddenly watching One Piece again because they have nothing to do in the pandemic. They infected me. Now it's in my head and it's there so stay, so hang on for the ride, because this was supposed to be a "short one-shot" (by now I really should know better). So far it's some 10k words in 3 chapters, I'm planning 5-6 chapters overall. Ok, make that at least 6. Updates will be on Sundays.
> 
> I love Zoro and Sanji bickering. Here goes.

„Scram!“ Nami hisses over the noise of fighting coming from the harbor.

Zoro, his arms full of shopping bags, is already moving, weaving through the crowd on the market to where the love-cook is haggling over spices with some old crone. Robin is hoarding Usopp into a different direction, away from all the people. Franky and Chopper left some time ago to find herbs and Zoro has absolutely no idea of where they are so Nami better find them.

The cook looks up when he feels Zoro’s eyes on him. A nod and a vague gesture towards the clamor at the harbor are all it takes for the blonde to realize that they need to go _now_. With a curse he steps away from the booth just as the body of a marine crashes into a stall further up the street.

Shit. Of course, the only fucking time they’re trying to be low-profile, there’s some second-grade pirates making a ruckus that will summon every single marine on this fucking island to the scene in record time. They really can’t afford this shit with Luffy still out cold on the Sunny.

For once Zoro doesn’t complain when the cook grabs him and pulls him towards a side road that he thinks might lead into the old quarter of the tiny port town. The cobblestone street at least suggests that.

“Fuck,” Sanji curses again and Zoro grumbles his agreement.

“How do we get back?” he asks, acutely aware that with his sense of direction it’s more likely for him to stumble back into the brawl than away from it if he’d try.

Everyone is running away from the market by now, people fleeing in all directions. It’s a mess of bodies, but it means that they don’t stand out much from the groups of shoppers and passersby. They’re screaming though, the women and the children and men too, and it’s already starting to give Zoro a headache.

“We don’t,” the cook replies, staying close, leading Zoro deeper into town. “Sunny’s north of the harbor, moron, the town’s south-east of it. Our only way out is through the harbor or up the cliffs.”

He’s tempted to start arguing about who of them is the moron, but by the crashes and yelling in their back the market has now become a battlefield. The whole place will be swarming with marines in half an hour. If any of them recognizes a Strawhat, this brawl will explode into a shitshow of epic proportions and some Seamen will be the last thing they’ll have to worry about when the Vice Admirals start flooding the island.

Sanji roughly yanks him into a narrow side alley, pinning Zoro against the wall with is good left arm. He almost retaliates, his hand already on Wado, but can think better of it before he levels the houses around them.

“The fuck is wrong with you, curly brow?” he snarls, shoving the man’s hand away from him, but instead of rising to the insult as he always does, Sanji ignores him. He takes a step back and starts undoing the buttons on his ridiculously fancy jacket one after another with deft fingers.

When he’s almost done, the cook lifts his right hand and gestures at Zoro impatiently, “Off!”

Zoro looks at the idiot’s hand that’s pointing at him, then down his body, then to the other man again. He blinks.

“Look, idiot, I don’t care wha-“ he starts but the love-cook interrupts him.

“Take it off, moss-head,” he orders again, blue eyes running over Zoro’s overcoat meaningfully as he shrugs out of his jacket gracefully, first over the left shoulder and then more slowly over the right one, pivoting around his own axis and catching the garment mid-fall.

Zoro can’t help it. He stares at Sanji, eyes wide.

They’ve fought fucking Kaido six days ago, but from everything he’s gone through in his three years as a pirate – and that includes getting trained by Mihawk – the love-cook pulling him into a back alley and telling him to strip is the most surreal thing that’s ever happened to Zoro. Hands-down. It’s not even close.

The blonde is glaring daggers at him now. He’s obviously decided that the swordsman isn’t getting out of his coat fast enough for his liking.

Sanji takes a step towards him, and then another, long legs closing the distance between them in seconds. He makes a move to grab at the collar of Zoro’s clothes, his one visible eye narrowing dangerously.

Zoro makes a noise. It isn’t a noise that he’s proud of, the bastard child of a hiss and a whimper, but it makes the cook actually _look_ at him. Whatever he sees in his eyes is enough to make Sanji take a hasty step back, putting some blessed distance between the two of them.

He needs a moment to find his voice again, but when he does, Zoro’s words are as dark as Enma and just as deadly.

“Whatever the fuck you’re trying to do, cook, you better have a damned good reason for it, because I’ll chop you to pieces if you don’t.”

His hand is still resting on Wado’s hilt and he is fucking _pissed_ at himself. He didn’t move a finger when the love-cook advanced on him, didn’t even think of it, too occupied with staring at him like a fish, mouth open and eyes wide. There’s no way Zoro is gonna be intimidated by the guy who almost killed himself with a nosebleed just from looking at a nice pair of tits.

The idiot frowns and looks at him like he grew a second head when’s the one who’s acting like a raving lunatic. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes dropping to where Zoro is clutching Wado.

Heavy boots hit the cobblestone road of the main street. Many of them, marching in unison, a constant staccato that makes Zoro’s ears perk up – it’s the sound of a squad of Marines, well trained, disciplined enough to remember their drills and to act on them, too. That’s not some men from a local garrison.

With a curse Zoro uses his free hand to pull the cook in by his uninjured arm and hide them in the shadows the afternoon sun has created between the buildings.

They both freeze in position, their breathing perfectly even, not moving a muscle.

No matter how stupid the love-cook thinks he is, Zoro understands that they can’t get into a fight with the marines right now. Luffy is still out cold and they need supplies and time to rest. None of the crew is at a hundred percent after Wano, especially him and the cook. They won’t be able to protect their nakama all banged up.

Nobody sees them and the footfalls move on undisturbed, getting lost in the yelling from the civilians when the squad moves away towards the market.

Suddenly Zoro is all too aware of the blonde again, who is standing in his space, the black jacket dangling from the fingers of his right hand. He grunts in warning, a sound that somehow comes out a lot less intimidating than the intended it to be.

Sanji lifts his visible eyebrow. “What got your panties in a bunch, bastard?”

This time he draws Wado, an inch of sharp steel sliding free of the sword’s sheath. The faint click is unmistakable, the cook’s heard it often enough to know what it means.

“Get away from me, ero cook,” he threatens, narrowing his eye for good measure to show that he is serious about it – having the cook this close without them bashing each other’s brains in has him on edge. There’s a tingle in the back of Zoro’s neck that he doesn’t really understand.

Usually, this is where they’d start fighting for real.

Instead, the cook takes a measure step back, his free hand coming to his chest on instinct to grab for a smoke. His jacket is still in his hand, however, and the sudden movement overextends his injured right arm. He winces.

Zoro notices, but the bastard is smooth enough to turn the motion into a clutch of his black tie without missing a beat, loosening the tight knot with ease.

He’s staring at Zoro again, though, and Zoro, with the wall in his back and the undressing love-cook in front of him, Wado still half-drawn uselessly, caught between hard stone and the pervert, feels trapped like he never does surrounded by enemies.

His eye flickers from Sanji’s hand to his throat and up to his face. They stare at each other while the cook undoes his tie completely and pulls it over his head.

“Oi!” the stupid cook suddenly says, and Zoro actually fucking flinches.

Wado comes out on pure instinct, and only the heel of the bastard’s black boot kicking against the pommel of the sword prevents Zoro from swinging the blade at the cook in a blow that would have razed the house on the other side of the alley.

They stay like this for a second, Zoro gripping his sword tightly, the muscles in his arm bulging from the strain of holding Wado, and Sanji balancing on one leg, the other pressed tightly against the hilt of the sword to keep it sheathed. It’s a fight neither of them will win, not with how equal in strength they are.

“What is your problem, moss-head?” Sanji snaps the same moment Zoro growls “Why the fuck are you stripping in front of me, idiot cook?”

A few seconds tick by and then the blonde’s mouth opens in a soundless o-shape – he pulls his leg back towards his body while Zoro stays exactly as he is, his grip on the white sword not budging an inch.

“It’s not like that!” Sanji hisses, sounding winded, and Zoro raises his brows in a gesture that clearly says “ _Coulda fooled me!_ ” because the alternative would be getting defensive, and getting defensive is a sure way for the bastard to realize that something is off. The cook is better with social clues than he is, at least until there’s a pair of tits involved.

The cook grimaces.

“You really thought…” he lets the sentence trail off, knowing better than to get into that argument right now. “Okay, look, a big guy with one eye, wearing a bandana, who has three earrings and carries three swords, and a blonde with a distinctive eyebrow, who wears a black suit and smokes. We’re really fucking easy to spot in a crowd.”

Zoro has to concede that point. The only two of the Strawhats who can go under the radar are Robin and Nami, maybe Usopp too if he found a way to hide his giant nose.

“So what, curly brows?” he shoots back, seeing the point, but not getting how stripping out of half their clothes will make much of a difference.

Sanji sighs and gives him a look that says he thinks he’s an idiot.

“Swap clothes, shitty swordsman,” he demands impatiently, pointing at Zoro’s overcoat with the hand holding his jacket. He kicks up the shopping bag he was carrying with the tip of his shoe, catches it with two fingers and puts the tie inside it.

With a low grumble Zoro complies and starts to untie the sash around his waist. Out of the corner of his eye he watches as the cook fishes a pair of sunglasses out of the bag and then drops it.

They trade the black jacket for the overcoat and sash, but while the blonde will easily fit into his baggy coat, there is no way Zoro’s broader frame will fit into the cook’s suit jacket. His shoulders are considerably wider than Sanji’s, his chest too – with a shrug he throws the garment over his shoulders.

“Take out the earrings,” the bastard mutters while he gets into Zoro’s clothes. It’s an order, and the vein on the swordsman’s temple pulses once before he gets himself under control.

Meanwhile the love-cook has fastened the coat around his hips, but instead of putting his arms into the sleeves he lets the garment drop like Zoro does in a fight. On the slim cook it bunches up like a skirt and makes his upper body look even thinner in comparison.

“At least the colors work,” he mumbles to himself when he stares down at his violet dress shirt, Zoro’s dark red overcoat-turned-skirt and his black slacks.

“Peacock,” Zoro comments, a sly smile on his lips.

The cook gives him the finger.

Zoro doesn’t deign that with a response and puts the earrings into the pocket of his pants where he’s already stuffed his bandana earlier.

“Now what, eyebrows?” he asks, arms crossed over his chest. “Blending in is all good, but where’re we gonna go? It’s not like we can walk into the next respectable inn and ask for a room. They’ll rat us out in a heartbeat.”

Sanji bites his lip and that alone is enough for Zoro to be intrigued by whatever is going to come out of the cook’s mouth next. Let the smug bastard chew on his pride a bit.

“I have an idea…” he says, hands buried in the pants of Zoro’s coat, shopping back dangling from his left arm, the sunglasses hiding his eye from view. “There should be a place around that I… well, they’ll let us rent a room, no questions asked. We’ll just have to sit tight for a day or two.”

 _Now_ Zoro wants to know all about what got the cook so flustered. He’ll follow the man to wherever that place is just to see what has him mincing his words like that.

“Lead the way then, bastard,” he says, grinning, and points towards the main road.

When he takes a step to leave the alley, however, curly brows doesn’t move. Instead, the cook remains rooted to the spot and gives Zoro what he thinks might be a pointed look. It’s hard to read him with the glasses on.

“Sword,” the idiot demands, and stretches his left hand out in Zoro’s direction, palm up.

“Fuck you, curly!” is Zoro’s immediate response.

The cook raises his eyebrow high enough that the swirl of it peeks out above his dark sunglasses.

“Three swords are a dead giveaway, moss-head,” Sanji explains slowly, as if the swordsman is an extremely dense child. “You could be wearing Nami-chan’s clothes and it wouldn’t fucking matter if you carry around all three of those blades. Only swordman on the Grand Line with a three-sword-style, remember?”

Zoro curses, and then curses some more just because he hates that fucking menace of a cook from the bottom of his heart. The guy wants to rip his soul out of his chest.

“I’m not giving you any of my swords,” he growls, slipping into a defensive stance.

“I don’t want any of your fucking swords, yet here we are,” the cook snarls right back, hand still outstretched. He wiggles his fingers impatiently.

The thing is that he’s right. Zoro knows it, too, but that doesn’t stop his knee jerk reaction of wanting to keep his blades as close to his person as he can, no matter what. He _needs_ them, they are what will make him the best swordsman in the world – his fingers curl around Wado.

“No, you fucking won’t,” Sanji hisses, staring at his hand. “We did the whole breaking out of a high-security prison spiel once. I’m not going back there, especially not because of your stubborn ass.”

Zoro loosens his grip on Wado Ichimonji and then grabs another sword before he can think better of it. He watches the cook’s face relax and then tense up again an instant later, sees the exact moment his body jerks when Zoro pulls the blade free.

Any other time he’d gloat about that, that the macho cook is intimidated by him – right now, he can’t find the joy in it.

“Take it!” he grunts and throws the katana at the Prince of Dumbass Kingdom, who catches it deftly enough considering his perpetual refusal to handle anything with an edge outside of a kitchen.

Long fingers close around a dark violet sheath. The cook stares at the sword.

“Of all the of them, you give me Enma?” he yells incredulously, his voice strained, pushing up the sunglasses with his right hand to make sure he’s seeing correctly.

“Well, it matches the color of your silly shirt!” Zoro retorts hotly.

He’ll never hand Wado over to another voluntarily, not even one of his nakama, not unless it’s a life-or-death situation. Kitetsu is a vile, cursed bugger that’ll try to get whoever handles it killed in all the ways possible. Enma is an even worse asshole of a blade, sure, but it’ll only suck the fuckers dry who actually try to swing it, something that he knows the stupid cook will never do.

“You’re giving me that thing because of the color? Are you a complete moron?” Sanji glares at him from beneath the sunglasses that are still perched on his head.

“You want me to take it back, shitty cook?” he threatens in return, taking a step forward, his hand on Wado’s hilt, because if the bastard wants a beating he can have one. With his left shoulder out of commission and the cook’s right arm useless, it could make for an interesting fight.

“The hell you aren’t!” the cook shrieks.

Usually, Zoro would get a foot to the face with that, but instead Eyebrow hurries to put the sword into his sash. Right side – he wonders if the guy is simply copying him or actually knows what he’s doing.

He’s not gonna ask, that’s for sure. What Zoro needs is sake, or at least a beer, and a place to nap that’s ideally somewhere inside because it’s a fucking tropical island and if he didn’t have to conceal his wounds, he wouldn’t be wearing a shirt. Or the cook’s fucking black jacket, for that matter.

“Get going, blondie!” he snaps at the cook while he picks up all those ridiculous shopping bags, knowing that Nami will have their heads if they lose them.

Sanji doesn’t reply, but pushes the glasses back over his eyes and leads Zoro out the opposite end of the alley from where they came in from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My One Piece knowledge is spotty (I'm missing entire arcs), especially in the original Japanese, so for once I'm not using any Japanese terms or speech patterns. My familiarity with the English One Piece dub isn't much better, so if the insults are off or sound weird, please tell me. This isn't really my fandom, I'm still learning.
> 
> Zoro's coat is a coat because it's not a hakama and I don't know what else to call it. Sue me.
> 
> Coming next: bickering pirates going places.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sanji and Zoro and the pub owner who can push Zoro's buttons without trying, aka. the scene from the summary. This was my initial notes, just that one scene. The two of them bickered their way into making it a full plot, which I'm super happy about, because writing their interaction is a whole lot of fun, not gonna lie. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Chapter 1005 kinda messed up where I originally wanted to go (I expected Oda to go back to the fight with Kaido and to have more time to develop the story), so I'll wing it from there.

The town is bordered on one side by the coast and the harbor, on one by orchards and on the other two by the giant cliff it was built against for protection from the region’s storms – Zoro learns all of that as he follows the cook through the streets. Damn, the bastard can sure be charming if he wants to be, asking for directions and cozying up to the locals in the process.

Zoro still has no idea where the fuck they are going. Not that he cares.

Their cover story is that they are bodyguards for some posh teenage girl who ditched them when the brawl reached the market to do some exploring on her own. Now they want to find her before daddy figures out that they messed up.

It’s simple enough that he has no problem remembering it, and since the place is apparently a resort for some rich nobles – which explains the tons of marines – nobody asks too many questions.

The townspeople don’t mention it outwardly, but Zoro doesn’t have to be a genius to see that they don’t give a fuck about the nobles. He’s not interested in their squabbles with the marines stationed on the island, though. If they’d really want to get rid of all of them, they could just stand up and stage a revolution or some shit like that.

Careful probing and some lewd jokes from the cook make a guy point them further into town, towards the cliffs. That’s where the party’s at, at least if one isn’t a marine or noble.

A row of pubs and bars lines the edge of the cliff, their vast, tropical gardens stretching towards the white wall that rises a good 300 or 400 feet from the ground. It’s raw stone that’s been smoothed down by the elements for hundreds of years.

He considers the giant piece of rock like he would an enemy, looks for weaknesses, places that he can exploit.

It’s too high and smooth to climb without haki – trying to stick his bare blades into the stone would wear down the steel – and it’s so fucking bright that even at night you’d see a man climbing from the bottom. Well, fuck, the bastard was right, there isn’t any getting out of this shit town that way.

“Oi, cook, you’re finding your place or what?” Zoro calls out to the cook. He’s hungry and fed up with having to carry around all of Nami’s shopping bags.

“Calm your tits, moss-head,” Sanji shoots back, clearly irritated, but he stops in the middle of the street to let Zoro catch up to him. “If there’s one around it should be here somewhere. Believe me, I’ll be-“

As if on cue the blonde turns his head sharply, the expression on his face as close to fear as Zoro has ever seen on him.

“Where?” he asks, covering the cook’s vulnerable right side on instinct.

A hand is placed on his upper arm, but the curly bastard still staring at a house further up the road – it makes Zoro tense up even more. The cook doesn’t touch people casually, least of all his rival. The only time they touch is when they fight, and whatever has thrown Sanji off balance enough to forget that means serious business.

Zoro _sees_ when he forces his body to relax, the way his legs flex and his fist slowly uncurls in the pocket of the coat.

“Follow me,” the cook orders, and for once Zoro obeys without second thought.

Sanji’s observation haki is more advanced than his. Zoro won’t be caught dead admitting it, and he’s been getting better at it too, but the idiot beats him in range as well as precision. The best course of action is to follow his nakama until he’s able to feel what has him on edge.

The building doesn’t look all that different from the ones surrounding it: it’s made of stone, with wooden window frames and a sign in the front that proclaims it as one pub or another. There’s flowerpots with palm trees by the entrance and the windows of the first floor are made from stained glass that reflects the light.

Only when they are standing in front of it does Zoro realize that a tiny alley is fitted between the pub and the house beside it, leading to a set of stairs that ends in some kind of walkway that’s been carved into the foot of the cliff.

Zoro lets himself be pulled into the alley by the cook, who takes one look at a strange symbol painted on the sidewall of the building and proceeds to knock on the plain door beside it. Huh, a side entrance.

“What is that, even?” Zoro mumbles, staring at the symbol that doesn’t make sense to him.

“An oyster, you uncultured swine,” Sanji growls and paws at the pockets of his slacks beneath the coat to pull out a cigarette. It’s lit and in his mouth an instant later.

He’s opened his mouth for a nasty retort when the door swings inwards. Zoro lets it snap shut immediately, teeth clicking together audibly.

The man who steps out of the building is tall, taller than both of them. His shiny black hair is long and pulled back into a high ponytail. There are huge teardrop earrings dangling from both of his ears, he wears a shirt with some floral motif that’s halfway unbuttoned and a pair of black pants so tight that Zoro’s balls ache in sympathy.

One look is enough to tell the swordsman that the guy isn’t a fighter. He’s too slim, lacks muscle, and his foot placement is all wrong.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” the stranger drawls, giving them both a once-over. His eyes settle on Sanji, run down the cook from head to heel and then back up considerably slower. “Hello, there, pretty bird.”

What Zoro expects is a flaming foot to the guy’s face.

Instead, the cook pushes the sunglasses to the top of his head, raises his curly eyebrow and takes a drag from his smoke. His right leg hitches up his side gracefully, bunching up the coat around his hips even further and drawing the eye to his makeshift skirt. Then he blows out a ring of smoke that perfectly frames the stranger’s face.

The way he moves is so completely _wrong_ that it sends a shiver down Zoro’s spine. This isn’t how the cook moves his legs, his body. Deliberate, yes, but it’s too slow, too revealing, too… sensual?

Fuckface laughs in a way that makes Zoro want to bash his head in right there.

“You’re one of Ivankov’s girls?” he asks, smirking.

For an instant Sanji’s cool expression slips and reveals a look of pure terror underneath, but it’s gone as fast as it has come, and if he hadn’t known the cook for years, Zoro would have thought that he’d imagined the aborted grimace.

“What does it look like?” he retorts, his tone that of the usual, pissed-off love-cook. Apparently that’s answer enough, because he doesn’t add anything else and instead motions to Zoro. “I’m Candy and that’s my partner, Wasabi. We need a room for a night or two… private.”

 _Now_ the guy looks at him properly, his green eyes staring at Zoro’s chest and arms, at the jacket around his shoulders and then catch at the scar over his left eye.

He flips Kitestu from its sheath, an inch of the blade slipping free.

Zoro doesn’t give a shit about stupid nicknames and oyster symbols and playing some no-name bodyguards. He hates the way the fucker is looking at the cook, as if he’s about to eat him whole, and he hates it even more that the cook takes it lying down.

His grin is bloodthirsty. He doesn’t need haki or killer instinct to cut that piece of crap in two. Just a flick of his fingers on Kitetsu’s hilt.

To his credit the man doesn’t take a step back but raises his hands in the universal sign of surrender. He’s still grinning, though, and his gaze flickers back to Sanji. “My my, you’ve found yourself quite the type there.”

The cook looks at Zoro… and laughs.

Usually he’d be insulted, but the laughter is deep and heartfelt rather than malicious, the cook’s head thrown back, his blonde hair obscuring his eyes. It bleeds the tension from his body, and consequentially from Zoro’s as well.

He huffs at the laughing idiot and slides Kitetsu back into its sheath. No need to slice the slimy brunette to pieces – at least not yet. Zoro gives the man one last glare before he relaxes his stance.

“You got a name, idiot?” He doesn’t pretend to care either way.

“Name’s Kubo, swordsman,” the guy lightly replies, but Zoro can see how he keeps his distance now, careful to have a few meters of space between them as Zoro advances. _Good_.

“Manners, moss-head,” Sanji scolds from his side, but there’s not half of the usual venom in his voice and the corners of his eyes are still slightly crinkled from laughter. It makes him look softer, younger, and Zoro can’t decide whether or not he likes the look.

“Whatever. I’m hungry, curly,” he tells the cook, the unspoken accusation of “And it’s your job to feed me!” hanging between them.

Before the conversation can evolve into a bitching contest between the two of them – and it would have, it always does with Zoro and Sanji – Kubo steps back from the side door and waves his hand in an invitation for them to come inside. First sensible thing the guy has done since they’ve met.

“The place will fill up soon,” he explains when they follow him through a small corridor into the seating area. “Dinner’s on the house, consider it a gesture of good will.”

 _Good will my ass_ , Zoro thinks, but if this is how the man wants to curry favor with them then he’s not going to protest. He isn’t the type to turn down a free meal, and neither is the cook. One thing less to pay is one thing less Nami can bitch about later.

There’s a bunch of tables cluttered around the space, and a bar right beside an open folding door that leads into the gardens behind the building. It’s darker inside than Zoro expected with all the windows, but the garden seems to be the main attraction. He can barely see a few meters in with all the palm trees and tropical plants, but there’s lamps hanging in the trees and he catches a glance of some chairs through the dense foliage.

“The Kitchens are on the ground floor,” Kubo continues. He leads them through another corridor and then up a set of stairs, “My living quarters too, communal bath and guestrooms on the second floor. Private room means you’ll have the attic. Payment is upfront in the morning for every day you’re staying.”

The stairs leading up to the attic are steep but worn from use and end in an antechamber with a wide window that overlooks the street in front of the house.

All three of them barely fit into the small space, and Zoro retreats towards the window when Kubo pulls what he assumes is the master key from the pocket of his too-tight pants. It opens the door with a soft click.

“Have at it, gentlemen,” he bids them and sends a wolfish grin towards the cook.

Zoro wants to tear the man apart, preferably with Enma – just because he can – but the cook still has the hell-sword, and even if he’d get it, the curly bastard would boil him alive and serve him for dinner if he’d cut up the pub in the process.

This time, a bit of killing intent must have leaked through, because Kubo takes a hasty step back and would have tumbled down the stairs if Sanji hadn’t caught him with a leg behind his back.

“Oi, watch it!” the love-cook snaps at him in warning. He’s starting to actually look pissed, so Zoro grumbles something that could have been an apology if someone were incredibly generous and steps inside the attic room. His eyes are still on the brunette, though.

Kubo catches himself without commenting either on Zoro being a murderous bastard or the cook still standing with his leg raised almost at face level.

On another guy he’d respect the guts it takes to look him straight in the eye without cowering under his gaze. On an enemy, on another swordsman, he’d consider it a mark of an opponent worth facing in battle. On the sleek pub owner, he resents it.

“I’ll send someone up with food, your key and the bill,” Kubo says when he’s found his voice again, as if nothing happened in the first place. “Should only take a few minutes.”

The cook catches him when he turns around to leave, a hand on his arm.

“We are in need of somebody who can deliver a message. Discreetly,” he whispers in a low tone. It makes his voice rougher, revealing what years of heavy smoking have done to it. “I’m sure you can recommend whoever is best suited for the job. Tell them it’ll pay well.”

“Ah, I know just the right person for that,” the brunette replies, nodding, and for once his smile doesn’t make Zoro want to bash his head in. “I’ll send them up after your meal.”

He winks at them, and Zoro watches his back as he turns and saunters down the stairs, the way his hips swing from side to side and his black hair falls almost to his waist – objectively speaking he is aware that the man is handsome, even dressed up like a fucking peacock. Now if he’d just stop drooling all over the cook, he might be able to tolerate him.

Sanji slips past him into the room, and Zoro is too distracted by Kubo to block the kick that sends him crashing to the wooden floor.

Shopping bags scatter around him and he winces when he wants to push himself up with his left arm on instinct. Chopper’s warning to not overdo it _or else_ from this morning is still fresh in his mind. With a grunt he uses his right to hoist his upper body up from the ground.

“The fuck, cook!” he growls at the blonde bastard, who has turned his back to Zoro and is carefully placing his own bag on top of the dresser by the door.

The cook spins around at the insult, crosses his arms in front of his chest, and glares at him.

“What about _low-key_ and _not drawing attention_ didn’t you understand, idiot swordsman?” he snaps right back while he takes the sunglasses off and throws them on the bed in the middle of the room. “Drawing your sword against our host? Can you be any more obvious?”

He pats down his legs until he finds his cigarettes, then the lighter clicks and a puff of smoke fills the air between them.

Zoro tries to disentangle himself from the shopping bags, but half of them are still wound around his arms, and there’s Nami’s bullshit all over the floor, and the cook’s damn jacket just fell from his shoulders and he’ll bitch about-

“He wanted to take you against the wall right there in the alley!” he snarls in frustration, because it was fucking disgusting, and he had to watch the fucking love-cock do absolutely nothing about it. “He’s been eye-fucking you from the first minute and you fucking _let_ him!”

Sanji’s eye goes impossibly wide. He stares at Zoro, who stares back defiantly and watches as the cook’s mouth opens in a silent o and the cigarette fall from his lips.

He expects him to catch it, with his long fingers or his goddamn shoe, but instead it drops to the floor in front of him.

For a moment, the room is completely silent. Then the cook unfreezes, curses hotly under his breath and stomps out the smoldering cigarette with enough force to make the floorboards creak.

He doesn’t bother to pick up the bud from the floor, but instead advances on Zoro, who is still half-sitting on the ground, tangled in shopping bags. He doesn’t move a muscle as the blonde slowly walks up to him, just sits there and waits for the clicking of his boots on the wood to stop, for the anger and the yelling and the kicks.

Sanji passes him without a word, kneels down with one knee on the floor and carefully picks up his suit jacket. He dusts it off and throws it on the bed to join his silly sunglasses.

“I was handling it,” he finally says, leans against the door and lights another cig.

Zoro pulls out Kitetsu and cuts himself free of all the trash bags, Nami be damned – they’ll find another bag to put all this shit into.

He’s still waiting for the violence. There’s always violence with him and the cook.

“Like you handle it when a woman abuses you?” he asks sardonically, not expecting an answer, because Zoro _knows_ how the love-cook handles abuse: by taking it. It’s one thing when it’s from Nami, who would never honestly try to hurt one of her nakama, but he lets them all do it. Every single fucking woman, and apparently the men too, now.

Their eyes meet when Zoro gets up to kick off his boots. The cook’s eyes are huge and wild and Zoro falters in his movement because he’s never seen that look on him before.

This is it, the moment they’ll go for each other’s throats and destroy half the building.

Somebody knocks at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight averted. For now. I try to keep Zoro in character, and it's at the same time horrible and hilarious to write his sense of perception. He's all action and barely any internal reflection, at least at the moment things are happening. Stuff will come up later, but it will take him a bit to figure out what's going on. I tried to keep both his and Sanji's behavior in the believable range.
> 
> Original notes:  
>  _"Pretty bird" once-over  
>  foot on tip, blows ring of smoke  
> "one of Ivankov's (girls)?"  
> aborted grimace_
> 
> Coming next: bitchy pirates entertaining visitors.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bickering between Zoro and Sanji is so easy to write, it feels like they do all the work and you just have to sit there and go along with the flow. From all the chapters this was by far the easiest to put together. Their interaction with other people just naturally feeds into their chemistry. 
> 
> I'll most likely be out next week, so expect the next update in 2 weeks. (Not making promises for next Sunday.)

The cook whirls around with pinpoint precision, his right leg raised – why the fuck can he give himself away like that but Zoro isn’t allowed to draw one single sword? – just as the door opens.

A young man no older than 18 is standing at the end of the stairs, a tray with two bottles and two covered plates of food in his left hand. He blinks, then stares first at the love-cook’s leg in the air, then at Zoro standing in a sea of crumpled shopping bags.

To his credit, the blonde kid takes it in stride.

“I’m Hunter, Hunt for short,” he introduces himself and then slinks past Sanji’s leg without a second glance at either of them. “Welcome to the Butterfly, gentlemen. The boss sends his regards.”

They turn their heads in unison to watch the teenager stroll into the room. Zoro’s dark eyes meet the cook’s blue ones. Sanji lifts his ridiculous eyebrow at the kid’s nerve, and he shrugs in return because he doesn’t give a crap as long as this Hunt is bringing them food.

“He says sorry for whatever he did,” Hunt chats on while he sets the table at the far end of the room. “You guys must’ve scared him good, beer’s never on the house. Told me to be nice to you too, like I can’t tell that you’re the sort not to mess with. It’s not often we have people with _real_ swords spending the night.”

Zoro has half a mind to ask what he means with that, but hunger wins out and he drops his katana on the bed with all their other stuff. Whatever they’re having, it smells great.

Hunt has uncovered two plates filled with rice, something that looks like cooked spinach and a dark stew that makes the swordsman’s mouth water. Two bottles of beer come with the food, water droplets clinging to the cool glass.

It barely takes a minute before the table is set.

“And open the window if you’re smoking,” Hunt chides when he puts the tray under his arm and makes to leave, giving the cook’s cigarette a critical look. “Technically you’re not allowed to smoke inside in the old district. The inspector’s fined us the last three times for it already.”

He pushes the window wide open with one hand, and suddenly the room is filled with faint noise from outside.

The leaves of the palm trees are rustling in the breeze, there’s clatter that’s obviously coming from the kitchen downstairs, somebody is laughing in one of the neighboring houses and a few birds are chirping in the foliage of the jungle garden.

“Enjoy your meal,” Hunt waves in passing, throws a key onto the bed and has closed the door behind him before Zoro’s had the time to prepare for being alone with the cook again.

He freezes where he’s standing, his back towards the room.

“Eat, moss-head,” the blonde huffs and pulls back the chair on the opposite side of the table. He must have taken Enma off when Zoro was distracted by the noise, because his sword is nowhere to be seen on the love-cook. A quick glance to the bed confirms it.

Despite what people may claim, Zoro’s neither slow nor stupid. He can see the tense set of Eyebrow’s shoulders, the way his legs are taut as bowstrings – their argument isn’t forgotten, only postponed.

“Whatever, cook,” he grumbles back just because he can, slouches down on the chair, takes his spoon and starts to dig in.

The food is fucking great.

Zoro isn’t a snob when it comes to food – he eats pretty much everything that’s put in front of him – but years of sailing with the Strawhats made him aware of the difference between a cheap beer and a bowl of whatever Perona and Mihawk fed him and what the cook prepares for his crew.

This, the stew and strange veggies and even the simple, steamed rice, has been made by somebody who knows what they’re doing. It’s hot and spicy and greasy and _fucking delicious_.

Sanji makes a sound that makes Zoro look up sharply. 

The cook’s sitting there motionless with his eyes closed and an expression of pure bliss on his face. One hand is still closed around his empty spoon. He looks like he’s in fucking heaven.

A second later his blue eyes snap open, as if the cook has sensed Zoro staring, which he most likely has, given his proficiency with Observation haki. He expects yelling, because there’s always yelling with Sanji, but with the food between them he won’t get a kick to the face, at least.

“My face isn’t your food, idiot,” the cook snaps. “Go look at your plate before your meal goes cold. Somebody worked hard to make this.”

Zoro rolls his eyes. “From the two of us I’m the one who’s eating, stupid.”

To prove his point, he shoves another spoonful of stew and rice into his mouth and gives the cook’s almost untouched plate a meaningful look while he chews.

That gets the cook to stop making that dreamy face and finally dig into his food. Zoro is fine with that, because when he’s stuffing his face with food he isn’t bitching at him. It also saves him from having to come up with something to say that won’t start another fight.

They’re good at it, fighting each other. Or maybe they’re just bad at having decent conversations. He’s never quite figured out which of the two it is.

When he’s cleaned his plate he leans back in his chair and takes a drink of his beer – and that shit is great, too. Beer and food and a place in the shade to take a nap. There’s even a nice breeze going. Zoro still has no clue what the fuck is going on with this town, but this is the most relaxed he’s been since shit started to hit the fan back in Wano.

He’s on his way to falling asleep when Dartbrow puts his spoon down. It clinks when it hits the empty plate, and he opens his eye to see what the cook is up to now.

Another click. Smoke rises towards the open window, and Sanji copies him in leaning back in his chair and taking a swing from his beer – he can’t remember the last time he saw the cook drink beer. Wine, yes, sake occasionally, the fruity bullshit he makes for the girls, sure, but beer is too… peasant for the cook.

Zoro snorts into his beer bottle. Then he’s outright hollering with laughter, because, of course, the bastard was raised in Germa Kingdom and after that in a fancy-ass restaurant.

Sanji raises his curly eyebrow at him. “Got a problem, moss-head?”

“You’ve never drunk beer straight from the bottle, cook,” Zoro replies, grinning. He doesn’t even know what’s so funny about it, but somehow the cook holding his beer like somebody else would a wineglass and sipping from it with that weird expression on his face is hilarious.

A long leg comes up to rest across the edge of the table, then the cook raises the other leg as well and crosses it over the first. It’s half showing off how flexible he is and half a blatant threat to the swordsman.

“And you’ve never drunk wine from a glass, stupid,” Sanji replies coolly. He pulls his cigarettes from the pocket of Zoro’s coat and lights a smoke. “It’s obvious which is the bigger loss.”

The chair the cook’s sitting on tips back with a twitch of his left leg and he blows lazy clouds of smoke into the air – there’s something decadent about the bastard lounging in his seat like that, legs on the table, smoke in one hand and beer bottle in the other.

“I have!” The words slip from Zoro’s mouth before he can think better of it.

This time it’s the cook who grins. “Right, idiot. Next you want me to believe that you wouldn’t have totally gotten lost in this town without me.”

“It’s none of your business anyway, shitty cook,” he snaps back, because if he wouldn’t, he’d be embarrassed, and Zoro absolutely isn’t ready to admit that he learned how to channel Armament haki through alcohol withdrawal. Neither will he ever tell a living soul that the one time he tried to go behind his back, the best swordsman in the world beat him up so badly that he couldn’t move for three days.

“Look who can dish it out, but can’t take it,” the cook singsongs around his smoke. Then he takes another sip of his beer, pinky sticking out, just to mess with Zoro.

He’s tempted to flip the table on the bastard and watch him land on his pompous ass. Would serve him right, with how smug he’s acting, but the food was delicious and even he isn’t enough of an ass to make the staff’s lives hell just because the cook is pushing his buttons.

There’s nothing else to do than fight with the love-cook, though. They’re pretty much trapped in the pub until they’ll be able to cont-

A sharp knock makes them both turn their heads towards the door and then back to each other. Zoro nods at the cook, gets up without a sound and walks to the bed, his swords now in easy reach.

“Door’s open,” he drawls and leans against one of the beams of the four-poster bed.

The door handle is pushed down and it opens slowly, the head of a kid peeking into the room. It’s a slip of a girl, a scrawny teenager with dirty blonde hair and big brown eyes. She’s around fourteen or fifteen or something, but Zoro is horrible at guessing the age of children.

“Hey,” the kid says meekly and slinks into the room. She looks at Zoro, then from him to Sanji, and her eyes go wide and she blushes bright red.

“You’re here to clear the table?” Zoro asks, taking pity on the kid.

He hears the cook’s chair hit the floor and the soft tap when he puts his bottle down on the table. He starts to stack the dishes, efficient as he always is with everything food-related.

“Yeah,” the girl mumbles. She closes the door and leans back against it, her hands hidden behind her back.

Zoro has half a mind to ask why the cook is clearing the table and not the girl, but she’s still pink in the cheeks and avoids looking at either of them. He remembers how it was, being an awkward teenager who didn’t know what to say and stumbled over every word that came out of his mouth.

“Here, Mademoiselle.” The cook brushes past him, tray with the dishes in hand, his poise waiter-perfect, right harm behind his back, and presents it to the girl with a bow.

She looks at him, eyes wide as saucers, and blushes crimson again.

“Kubo said…” she begins, voice hoarse, not moving an inch. “There’s a message you want delivered. _Discreetly_. For a price.”

He snorts. Right, the girl can barely open her mouth in a room alone with the two of them, still less look them in the eye. Sending her across the island to talk to Brook and Jimbei sounds like the worst damn plan they could come up with.

The cook raises his right hand behind his back, open palm towards Zoro. _Wait_!

“There is,” he agrees. Zoro can hear the smile in his voice – it’s the kind, gentle one he uses with Chopper sometimes. “Question is if you are up for the task, honey. And what your price is, of course.”

The pet name makes the swordsman’s eyebrows rise up to his hairline. The cook pants after anyone with tits, but he’s never seen him hit on a kid before. Doesn’t fit with his morals.

“I can,” the girl agrees immediately. She’s stopped stuttering, at least. “No questions asked, nobody will ever know I was there, won’t tell a soul what happened. You pay half the money up front. If you’re involved with slave trading, the deal’s off the table and I’ll rat you out to the marines.”

That’s way more guts than Zoro expected from their few minutes of interaction.

Sanji laughs. “We got absolutely nothing to do with slave trading, darling. Busted out a few people from the auctions, the Celestial Dragons are no friends of ours.”

It’s a lot more information than he feels the cook should be sharing with some snot-nosed brat, but the idiot has proven to be better at interacting with people than his heart-eyed drooling over Nami and Robin makes it look. Zoro didn’t forget the whole “Mr. Prince” act.

“So Kubo was right,” she mumbles, her eyes flickering to Zoro and the swords on the bed for a second. “I’ll deliver you message… if the money’s worth it.”

The cook hums in agreement and strolls to over to the shopping back he put on the dresser earlier. Nami allotted him a pouch of gold coins from Wano for buying spices and special ingredients, but that’s the only money they have on them – saving piss poor countries from civil war and dictators is great for making a name for themselves, but their treasury isn’t exactly overflowing.

“Here.” The cook throws two coins to the kid, who catches them deftly. “You should be able to find a place that exchanges them for Belly.”

She holds them up between her fingers. The gold glints in the sunlight.

“Three more when I come back.”

Zoro wonders if all kids these days are like Nami or if that kind of greed is a thing that’s specific for the Grand Line. He was a fucking Bounty Hunter, and he was never that desperate for money.

“Won’t happen,” he cook drawls, shaking his head. “We owe Kubo for a night already. Might become two. We need food and drink as well… probably need to bribe somebody to slip out of town when we’re making a run for it. Can’t spare the money.”

For a moment the girl seems taken aback, then she pulls out her arms from behind her back and crosses them in front of her chest. It doesn’t have much of an effect with her non-existent breasts.

“Then we don’t have a deal,” she hisses with all the fury of an angry lion cub.

Sanji takes two steps towards her with his long legs, food tray still in hand, and runs his one blue eye down her form from the dirty blonde hair to the tip of her worn-down boots. There’s something in his gaze that Zoro doesn’t understand and that makes the girl push herself back against the door.

He walks past her, to the mess of shopping bags Zoro left on the floor, then crouches low with the coat pooling around him like a dress and studies each bag before he kicks one up with his foot and catches it in his right hand. The tray in his left doesn’t waver for even a second. The kid gasps.

The cook’s a fucking show-off – not that Zoro isn’t, but he hasn’t sunken low enough yet that he needs to impress random teenagers in some backwater port to feel validated.

“These should be your size,” the cook says and holds the small, light pink back out to the girl. “If you’re back by nightfall I’ll teach you how to walk in them.”

She leans slightly forward to peer into the bag. Then she swallows hard.

“What…” she stammers before she catches herself, and this time it’s a full-body blush that spreads down the kid’s neck and to her ears. Her voice is high and shaky. “What’s the message?”

Zoro watches as she eyes the shopping bag with a kind of longing that he’d have expected from a man dying of thirst in the desert. The look she gives the cook is similar, but more… raw? It’s need and want mixed with something dark and hungry. Like she wants to eat him and tear him apart at the same time.

There’s fucking _layers_ to this conversation, and Zoro understands none of them.

“Me and the moss-head are safe. We’re stuck in town, lots of marines. Rendezvous in 1 or 2 days. How are the others?” the cook recites slowly. He still has the bag dangling from his fingers, but his stance is missing his usual grace, spine too straight, legs tense.

The girl repeats after him, one time and then a second and a third. It’s not a hard message to remember.

“Where to?” she finally asks when she has the message down. The repetition has changed her expression into something bordering on normal, though emotional turmoil is still spilling from her like water from a burst pipe.

“A grove about 5 miles north of the harbor along the coast and through the forest. The mooring point of the abandoned smuggler’s den, I assume you know where it is.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” the kid agrees and finally takes the tray from the cook.

They stare at each other for a moment, then the girl turns around to leave.

“Oi, kid!” Zoro calls when she puts an unsteady hand on the door handle. He watches both her and Curly freeze with a certain amount of glee. What, did they forget that he’s here? “What’s the name?”

She looks at him over her shoulder. “It’s Val.”

Before either of them can say another word, she’s fled from the room, pulling the door close behind her with enough force to make the bang of it reverberate through the silent attic.

Slowly, Sanji turns to look at him. Zoro raises his eyebrows and follows the cook’s movements with his dark eyes when the other man quietly walks up to him and holds the bag out for him to take a look at what’s inside – it’s a pair of high-heeled shoes, red ones, obviously ones Nami bought earlier.

“Spill, cook,” he orders.

The love-cook drops the shopping bag on the floor, walks over to the table, picks up his half-full bottle of beer and chugs it down in one go. Zoro watches him swallow and realizes that he liked it a lot better when he was drinking like the snobby fucker he is.

Sanji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and brings the empty bottle down hard on the wooden table. His lips twist into a grin that’s all teeth.

“Here goes a conversation I never wanted to have, moss-head,” he snarls, and if Zoro didn’t know him as well as he does, he wouldn’t have noticed the dread underneath the loathing in his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tension at the end, the start of the plot actually coming together, that was so far my favorite part to write. Will it get steamy from here on out? Not as fast you might like or in the way it could, but patience is a virtue (and Zoro needs to get his head in the game). I promised UST, so might as well deliver.
> 
> They are eating Rendang daging, not that it really matters, but good food should be appreciated.
> 
> Coming next: angry pirates having a heart to heart (kind of).


End file.
